Better Left Buried (33 page)

Brea sniffled, overwhe
lmed by the imagery of the near-flat plain where Harmony had died and where their families’ secrets nearly killed her as well.

“Are you all right?” Jaxon set his hand on her knee. The gesture meant to comfort her sent her into full
-on tears. “Babe, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”
She opened the car door.

Jaxon
rushed around to help her but she was already out.

One of the men nodded in their direction, his
sad expression saying he understood why they were there.

Brea
intended to start a memorial with the funeral flowers, even if she were the only one to visit it.

“Help me with the flowers?”

A weathered wooden post topped with a rusted mailbox was all that was left to mark.

Jaxon opened the back of the Jeep. “Where do you want them?”

“There. By the mailbox, I guess.”

Jaxon propped up the wreath of daisies and roses. “Like this?”

She nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. A weight pressed down on her chest, the memories making it hard for her to breathe. She stared across the lot, at the smashed red car loaded onto the flatbed, and at the hole that had been Tom’s final resting place.

The ground shook as the bulldozer
caved in the foundation and backfilled the basement with dirt.

“The house
is gone,” she said, the finality of it making it hard not to completely break down. Harmony’s life and death were in there, and in a sense, so was part of hers. Her family had been there, having the kind of good times that families do before life complicates them. She lowered her head and wept for everything the home had stood for, good and bad. “It’s all gone.”

Jaxon folded her into his arms, rubbing her back.
“And why is that making you cry? Did you want them to rebuild it?”

“No,
” Brea said, shaking her head. “Some things are better left buried.”

One of the most rewarding feelings is to hear that a reader has enjoyed one of my stories. Writing is a time-consuming, solitary venture and most often it is word of mouth that encourages others to take a chance on an author unknown to them.

Thank you for reading
Better Left Buried
and I hope you’ll consider leaving a brief review.

After fifteen years of working in healthcare, Belinda Frisch's stories can't help being medicine influenced. A writer of dark tales in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres, she has been writing since her teens. Her fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer's Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition. Her novel,
Cure
, was the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival and was optioned for film. She is the author of
Cure
,
Afterbirth
,
Fatal Reaction
, and
Better Left Buried
. She resides in upstate New York with her husband, sons, and a small menagerie of beloved animals.

Visit her blog at: BelindaF.blogspot.com